Choreographed Obsolescence
Welcome to Tide City. A city likened to a machine. A machine designed to Extract, Produce, Distribute, Consume and Dispose for unadulterated economic growth and financial prosperity.
Planned obsolescence is a business strategy in which the obsolescence of a product is planned and built into it from its conception. This is done so that in future the consumer feels a need to purchase new products and services that the manufacturer brings out as replacements for the old ones.
The project tells the tale of a fictional city that is more likened to a machine. It has no consciousness and assumes profit as a measure of progress. The city is called Tide and almost everything within Tide is engineered to become redundant or obsolete within 24 hours. Here citizen and consumer are one and the same. They are a community of workers who are willing participants to the city’s manufactured desires.
The form of the project is a series of 'filmic still life' compositions that are inspired by Dutch Golden Age paintings that act as windows into the city. The project blurs the line between fact and fiction. The fictional city and its absurd social and economic system acts as the platform for the willing suspension of disbelief. The irony is that the city is already here all around us today.
The Forgotten Shelf
Faster and Faster
Every morning, people wake up to the now old and obsolete possessions that are left behind and never seen again. These objects are highly engineered to fail within 24 hours to encourage further consumption.
The Disposable Room
Faster and Faster
Within each disposable room, various choreographies of failure take place. In this instance we have the chair that counts the amount of times it is sat on and collapses once it reaches its pre-programmed limit. The door lock that can only be opened and closed once. The shelf with specially engineered brackets that slowly bend and break from the weight of the shelf itself. The bed that stores sweat so its smell becomes unbearable after one night. The wallpaper that begins to fall apart when exposed to daylight and the pink hello kitty watch that is now simply not cool anymore.
Black Friday
Faster and faster
In Tide, every Friday is black Friday and every morning is Christmas. The great shopping mall is never empty as obsolete objects rain down the great atrium.
The Portrait
Faster and Faster
In tide, it's tough being fashionable. With around ten fashion seasons per day, knowing what to wear and when is crucial. Each new trend is another opportunity to remodel and reconstruct ones identity. The very trendy plan their whole day around these expressive moments. With the makeup and clothing designed to last for a couple of hours only, being cool is a profession.
The Banquet Hall
Faster and Faster
The city appears as a whole where no desire is lost and of which you are a part, and since it enjoys everything you do not enjoy, you can do nothing but inhabit this desire and be content. Such is the power the system possesses; if for 12 hours a day you work, your labour which gives form to desire takes from desire its form, and you believe you are enjoying the city wholly when you are only its slave and are part of the work, buy and consume treadmill.
The Greige Goods Building
Faster and Faster
With ever increasing demand, the city grows wider and wider. And with it, grow its tentacles providing more and more goods to more and more people. Distance is measured not in miles, but in time. Inventory is replaced by in transit and goods arrive as Greige Goods, partially assembled components ready to be customized and built to suit the Fast fashion market.
The Destruction Party
Faster and Faster
The treadmill of consumption never stops.
Displays of possession are followed by outrages displays of affluence through more and more elaborate forms of destruction as consumption. Obsolescence is an addiction, and the more extravagant the choreography of failure, the bigger the high. The Locations might change but the party never ends.
Choreographed Obsolescence